Reviewed by Gary E. Wilson, President & Designated Broker · Managing Greater Seattle rentals since 1982
The common areas are the product a retail centre actually sells. A tenant leases a box; what they are paying for is the parking, the circulation, the lighting and the general impression that makes customers choose this centre over the one down the road.
That gives common area management a commercial weight it does not carry in other asset classes. In an office building, a tired car park is a comfort issue. In a retail centre it is a traffic issue, and traffic is every tenant's revenue.
It is also, in most centres, the largest recoverable expense category — which means it is partly the tenants' money and has to be both well spent and well documented. See CAM and Percentage Rent.
Wilson Management manages retail common areas across Bellevue, Seattle and the Eastside. For the wider service see Retail Property Management.
Parking Is the Centre's Front Door
Customers form their opinion of a centre in the car park, before they reach any tenant.
Surface condition. Potholes and failed sections read as neglect and are genuinely expensive once water has undermined the base. Crack sealing and timely patching extend pavement life by years at a fraction of replacement cost.
Striping. Faded striping is one of the cheapest and most visible improvements available. It also affects capacity — poorly defined bays waste space, and in a constrained centre that is real parking lost.
Drainage. Standing water after rain is unpleasant, damages the pavement from beneath, and in a Puget Sound winter freezes. Catch basins cleared before the wet season prevent most of it.
Accessibility. Accessible bays, access aisles and routes to entrances need to comply and to remain compliant — striping fades, and signage is knocked down.
Circulation and capacity. How traffic flows, where it queues, and whether particular tenancies generate demand that conflicts with others. A drive-through queue backing across an aisle is a problem for every other tenant.
Lighting
Lighting decides whether a centre is usable after dark, which in this region means most of the trading day through winter.
Coverage matters more than brightness — dark corners, unlit walkways and poorly lit entrances create both a security concern and a perception one. Fixtures need replacing promptly rather than accumulating; a car park with several dark poles reads as abandoned regardless of how well the rest is run.
Timing needs to reflect trading hours across the whole centre. Lighting that switches off before the last tenant closes leaves customers and staff in the dark, and if any tenant trades late, the schedule has to accommodate them.
Landscaping and Presentation
Landscaping is the element most easily reduced when budgets tighten and among the most visible when it is.
Regular maintenance — mowing, pruning, weed control, seasonal planting where the centre's positioning justifies it — signals that somebody is paying attention. Overgrown or dead planting signals the opposite, and customers read it accurately.
Two operational points are worth attention. Vegetation growing to obscure tenant signage is a recurring and entirely avoidable tenant complaint. And planting that blocks sightlines across a car park is a security concern as well as a visibility one.
Refuse and Servicing
Refuse is where retail centres differ most from other property types, because tenant waste volumes vary enormously and the mess is public.
Compactor and bin capacity sized to actual generation, serviced frequently enough that nothing overflows, and located where servicing does not conflict with customer circulation. Restaurant tenancies generate far more waste, and grease and food waste bring their own handling requirements — including the pest issues that follow when they are handled poorly.
Loading and servicing areas need enough space and access for deliveries to occur without blocking customer traffic, and delivery timing that avoids peak trading is worth agreeing with tenants rather than hoping for.
Fly-tipping is a real and recurring cost at accessible centres. Prompt removal is the only effective response, because accumulated dumping attracts more.
Cleaning and Ongoing Presentation
Sweeping, litter picking, cleaning entrances and walkways, removing graffiti promptly, and pressure washing on a schedule. None of it is complicated and all of it is noticed.
Graffiti in particular should be removed quickly rather than scheduled. It attracts more, and a centre carrying visible graffiti for weeks tells customers and tenants the same thing about how it is managed.
Seasonal preparation matters here: gutters and drains cleared before the wet season, ice and snow arrangements in place before they are needed with materials on site rather than ordered during the event.
Managing Work Around Trading
Common area work is disruptive by definition, and in retail the disruption falls on tenants at their revenue-generating hours.
Resurfacing, restriping, lighting replacement and landscaping renewal should be scheduled around trading patterns, phased so parking is never lost wholesale, and communicated to tenants in advance with realistic timing.
Tenants tolerate necessary work considerably better when they were told what to expect. They react badly to arriving on a Saturday morning to find half the car park coned off with no warning — and in retail, one lost Saturday is a real number to that tenant, not an inconvenience.
Parking Enforcement and Capacity
Parking capacity is finite, and in a constrained centre the difference between adequate and inadequate is often not the number of bays but who is occupying them.
The recurring drains on capacity are predictable. Tenant staff parking in the prime customer bays nearest the entrances. Contractors during any fit-out. Long-stay parking by people using the centre as a park-and-ride or leaving vehicles overnight. Abandoned vehicles, which accumulate quietly and take up a bay indefinitely.
Each is manageable, and each requires the landlord to do something rather than hope. Tenant staff parking is best addressed in the lease and then reinforced with tenants directly — most staff park where it is convenient because nobody has told them otherwise. Long-stay and abandoned vehicles need a documented process, which in turn needs signage that supports enforcement.
Where a centre is genuinely at capacity at peak times, the analysis worth doing is which tenancies generate the demand and when. A tenant mix that concentrates demand into the same hours produces a parking problem that more enforcement will not solve, and that is a leasing question rather than a management one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does the car park matter so much?
Because customers form their impression of the centre before reaching any tenant, and because parking condition is a traffic issue rather than a comfort one. Traffic is every tenant's revenue.
What is the cheapest visible improvement?
Restriping, usually. It is inexpensive, immediately noticeable, and it also recovers capacity that faded bays waste.
How quickly should graffiti be removed?
Promptly rather than on schedule. It attracts more, and visible graffiti tells customers and tenants exactly how the centre is managed.
How should refuse be handled with restaurant tenants?
With capacity sized to actual generation and servicing frequent enough to prevent overflow, plus the separate handling that grease and food waste require — and the pest control that follows if it is done badly.
When should common area work be done?
Scheduled around trading patterns, phased so parking is never lost wholesale, and communicated in advance. One lost Saturday is a real number to a retail tenant.
Who pays for common area maintenance?
Typically recovered from tenants through CAM, which means it is partly their money and has to be both well spent and documented in a way a reconciliation can carry.
What is most often neglected?
Lighting fixtures allowed to accumulate as failures, and landscaping cut back when budgets tighten. Both are highly visible, and both signal neglect more loudly than their cost suggests.
How do we stop staff taking the best parking?
Address it in the lease and then reinforce it with tenants directly. Most staff park where it is convenient simply because nobody has told them otherwise, and the prime bays nearest the entrances are the ones customers want.
What about abandoned vehicles?
They need a documented process and signage that supports enforcement, because otherwise they sit indefinitely and occupy a bay that has already been paid for by every tenant contributing to CAM.
Get Started
In a retail centre the common areas are the product, and their condition is a traffic decision rather than a housekeeping one. Wilson Management, Inc. manages them accordingly.
Request a free analysis or contact us. You can also reach our Bellevue office at (425) 453-0089, 1380 112th Ave NE #203, Bellevue, WA 98004.